Tag Archive for Alcohol

I get asked about cleanses all the time, literally. Which ones are good, are they necessary, are the real,… you get the drift. Here’s the facts, and trust me, this is interesting – and applicable to you, I promise.

First the Scoop, and then, every day Solutions.

Cleanses are Real, they’re Important, and they’re Necessary (I’ll explain why in a minute). Unfortunately, “Cleanses” have been hijacked by the Diet Industry; when we think of a cleanse, we think of ingesting something that will make us poop away all the blubber in our stomach. Right?

That’s faulty reasoning. Delete it. If our stomach has blubber on it, it’s not from impacted intestines, it’s Body Fat, and all the pooping in the world won’t reduce that.

However, we could have excess body fat because our liver is Toxic, Sluggish, and Fatty. Slow livers also impact our moods, our immune system, and our sex hormones. Struggling with any of that?

Our liver is the seat of our metabolism. It performs between 400 and 500 jobs a day. It burns more calories than our muscles. It metabolizes fats, proteins, and carbs. It filters every single chemical that goes in our mouth or our skin. It makes cholesterol. It makes bile. It breaks down all our old hormones. It transports amino acids through the blood. The list is endless; the point is: guess what happens when it’s not working correctly?

Dr. Mark Hyman says we become “toxic waste dumps”. I love that analogy!

Our liver deals with all the chemicals that we breath in, slather on, bath in, and ingest. Some studies say that 80% of all liver toxicity is from pharmaceutical drugs. Ever taken a Tylenol? It’s the most popular drug in the US, and the #1 cause of Liver Failure. More than 900 prescription drugs are known – it’s listed on their fact sheets – to cause damage to the liver.

Enough scare tactics. What To Do About It? I used to advise a liver cleanse once or twice a year, and I still do. But I’ve expanded my thinking: I personally cleanse my liver every day. Every day I eat or drink Liver Loving Foods. Every day I take herbs that are good and helpful for my liver. Every day I avoid as many chemicals as possible.

I think of myself as a person in a row boat that has a leak in it. The water (toxins) keep coming in, but I have buckets that I use to scoop the water out, so I don’t sink. That’s what we need to do: keep up with the constant assault of chemicals in our world.

By the way, anxiety, stress, depression, and anger, all the negative emotions, can have negative effects on our liver. The Brain, the Nervous System, and the Liver are INTIMATELY connected.

Here’s some Cleanse Particulars: foods; herbs; with how-to’s on incorporating them; and actions that make a difference.

2) Use natural cleaning products. Here’s a link to EWG’s Guide to what to use and what not to use. MOMS: cancer, heart disease, auto-immune, behavior disorders – they’re all on the rise in our children. Let’s protect our kids by investing time in learning about this.

3) Use make-up and skin care products that aren’t loaded with cancer causing chemicals. Read this Post to learn what’s in Clinique lotion; a recipe for homemade lotions; and a link to EWG’s beauty data base to research everything you rub on your body.

Oddly, I still talk to people who think that what we rub on our body couldn’t possibly harm our liver or brain. Wrong. Our skin is our bodies largest organ. It’s filled with pores. There’s a fast and direct connection to our blood stream. The blood goes through our liver and our brain. Of course what we rub on our skin affects us!

These foods contain specific nutrients the liver uses to break down chemicals, toxins, and old hormones, and convert them into something we can poop or pee out.

What about All Vegetable Diets, or Juice Fasts for cleansing? I don’t recommend them. The liver uses a LOT of amino acids to do it’s jobs. Go too long without eating amino acids (proteins), and your body will break down MUSCLE TISSUE for the amino acids. You don’t want to lose muscle tissue!

Do you have to eat all these foods every single day? I have garlic, turmeric, and leafy greens every single day. I hate grapefruit, so I never eat it. The other foods I rotate in. Make the effort.

There’re a lot of great herbs on the market. Try your local health food store, or order from Mountain Rose Herbs, Yogi Teas, or Jon Barron.

Dr. Group has a great liver tincture, as does Herb Pharm. I also like the Biotics 10 Day Cleanse and have used that several times. Mark is finishing one up right now. Email me if you’re interested in that.

6) Sweat. Seriously. Like, go to Bikram, or a hot yoga class once or twice a week, or a sauna. We can eliminate toxins through our pores – use that pathway!

7) Give Up The Alcohol. Yes. Do it. Alcohol converts to fat that gets stored in the liver. Alcohol contains “aromatase”, which converts testosterone to estrogen. Alcohol contains fructose, which builds up as fat in the liver. Alcohol raises blood sugar, which has to be converted into triglycerides in the liver.

Repeat This: Alcohol is Liquid Donuts.

8) Pray and Meditate. Remember I said there’s HUGE links between our moods, emotions, and our liver? We’re a giant connection, and the enteric nervous system connects our brain to our liver and gut. It’s important to get control of our minds, we need to “think about what we’re thinking about”.

9) Drink a TON of water. All day. The liver needs water not just for “flushing”, but also for doing it’s jobs. We all know this, so make water a priority. Fill a bunch of water bottles or pitchers at night or in the morning and get through them. Add some lemon or lime if you want – they’re liver loving:)

Does this all make sense? If we want to be vibrant, sharp, stable, and healthy, we need to do everything possible through our food and lifestyle to make that happen. Nurturing our liver, every day, is a huge part of the puzzle. Take these ideas, read the links, and invest time in learning how your body functions.

The Cruise is Great, the lectures fantastic and I promise a synopsis soon, but today I need to write about something different: De-Stressing. And I’m glad to be writing this Memorial Day Saturday, a weekend that’s typically associated with a lot of excessive drinking and parties, because….. it’s Memorial Day, and that’s what we do, right? Party on a holiday because we need to and deserve to and it’ll make us feel better. Right? Wrong! I think we’ve all been hypnotized into believing that we need to remedy our stressful days, weeks, and lives with alcohol, bad food, and staying up late. This belief is very apparent on a ship more so than in real life, because a ship is a FishBowl. You see everything.

Over the past few days I’ve heard moans and groans about weight gain, hangovers, and exhaustion – on THE CRUISE SHIP. The food’s free, the alcohol’s not but it’s unbelievably plentiful and available, and the entertainment and fun literally don’t stop.
But that doesn’t mean we should do it to excess. If our forms of “de-stressing” actually makes us feel stressed, guilty, anxious, depressed, and tired – later – that’s not real de-stressing. If our forms of “de-stressing” cause us to gain weight, harden our arteries, have erectile dysfunction, belly bloat, and feel like a bomb went off in our head, we’ve done NOTHING to de-stress in the Real Sense. We’ve just made ourselves more tired, more adrenally depleted, more hormonally off balance, and more set up for INFLAMMATION AND EVERY DISEASE OUT THERE. We age faster; who feels happy about that?

I know everyone’s plans are already set for this weekend, but entertain this thought for me: maybe all the over eating and excessive drinking is a HALLUCINATION OF PLEASURE. Not the real thing.

Eating Real Whole Foods means examining our habits and thought patterns; we need to apply that same principle to our Entire Life. What’s really good – long term – for our body and soul? Long term. Long term. Remember these words this weekend and meditate on them: The Hallucination of Pleasure. Is that what we want?

Went to a Woman’s Health Seminar yesterday and it was excellent:) We heard about PMS, Menopause, Weight Gain, Bone Health, and the (lack) of sexual desire so many women feel that it’s the subject of a zillion jokes and pretty much accepted as “normal”.

Once again, it’s ALL ABOUT DIET AND LIFESTYLE. Your health, your mood, YOUR HORMONES, they’re the result of the Food You Eat, How You Manage Your Stress, Sleep, and Exercise. There were no Big Reveals, Special Programs, or, like I said above, Magic Pills. That’s okay though, because Your Health Is In Your Hands: you have power and control over your physical and mental health, you just need to start exerting it!

PMS: Low B vitamins and low magnesium stores will cause cramps and moodiness. If you eat tons of carbs, you’ll burn through your B’s and Mag stores just processing/metabolizing the flours and the sugars. You can supplement, but if your diet is Oatmeal/cereal/bagel for breakfast, Starbucks midmorning, bagel/sandwich/pasta for lunch, carby snack mid-afternoon, and then pasta/bread for dinner, then WINE, there’s NO CORRECTING for that level of refined, processed carbohydrate ( whole wheat, whole grain, whatever, they’re reduced to Glucose/Sugar in your stomach.)

Menopause? Some other countries don’t even have a word for that. We’re special because we have some of the worst Peri – Menopause Symptoms In The World. If you’ve spent your whole life eating processed carbs, trans fats, and chemicals; drinking wine several nights a week, snacking enough that Insulin is never turned off; not managing your stress so that Cortisol is made Constantly – which means Raw Ingredients for other hormones go to Cortisol – then there is no supplement/pharmaceutical protocol that’s going to fix you. Changing your diet will though. So will adding exercise, going to bed hours before midnight, and managing stress. Seriously.

Bone Health? American’s eat more calcium, take more Vitamin D, more Bone Building Supplements, than ANY OTHER COUNTRY. We have MORE osteoporotic fractures than ANY OTHER COUNTRY. You can’t supplement your way out of a Carby Diet, Unmanaged Stress, Wine Every Night, Little Sleep, and No Exercise. Just like Weight is ALL ABOUT THE HORMONES, so is your mood, your health, and your BONES. If you have Glucose in the blood stream ALL THE TIME ( see diet described above), bone health will be greatly affected.

Sexual Desire? Doesn’t happen when you’re exhausted, adrenally depleted, have a slow thyroid, a liver that’s clogged, an unhappy attitude about your body, and loads of cortisol. Again, there’s no Pill or Magic Formula to fix this. But Lifestyle Works Every Time – honest.

We’ve got ESPN on this morning ( If my husbands home, it’s on. It seems to have a good calming effect on him as he doesn’t even sit and watch it, he just enjoys having it in the background.) So far there’ve been commercials for Doritos ( super happy people), Beer (super happy people), Prilosec ( Happy guy in front of a PILE of food; Warning stayed on the screen for the duration: Do Not Take More Than 14 Days. That’s because it RUINS DIGESTION, REDUCES STOMACH ACID, and INHIBITS NUTRIENT ABSORPTION – it says that on the package too.) and then Cialis (happy people).

If you live your life according to Media Advertising, this morning’s message is this: Junk food is wonderful and makes you happy, Alcohol is wonderful and makes your life better, and Drugs will help you with all the problems you encounter from your Junk Food and Alcohol consumption.

But that’s not true, at all. Not for men, not for women, and not for children.

Your lifestyle choices Every Single Day are what make or break your health,.. every single day. Take control of your life: eliminate the processed grains and sugars, read your labels so that you can avoid trans fats and chemicals too. Don’t assume ANY FOOD that comes in a box or bag is healthy, even if it’s in the Health Section. Do you drink Wine or Beer several nights a week? Think of alcohol as Liquid Doughnuts, quit fooling yourself that there’s some health benefits, because there’s not. Treat alcohol as a VERY OCCASIONAL treat; did you know that a serving size of wine is FOUR OUNCES???? Alcohol ruins stomach mucas/gut function, destroys the liver (which compromises about 60% of our Total Daily Calorie Burn), influences the body to convert everything consumed with the alcohol to be converted to fat, induces insulin to be released, damages neurons in the brain and I could go on and on and on, but let’s leave it at this: Alcohol’s not healthy.

Sleep is IMPORTANT, and lack of sleep does a number on your hormones that lead to all kinds of illness and disease. Make getting to bed and falling asleep – way before midnight – a priority. Exercise is IMPORTANT, you don’t have to do Cross Fit, or Interval Training, but you should move EVERY DAY. Yoga / dance classes / walking / 10 minutes on a bike and 10 minutes of lifting / whatever… it’s all good and your mind and body NEED it. Stress Management: Practice this. Read about it, learn about it, focus on it. If you live a life where stress in unavoidable, you need to learn mental and physical tricks to keep your Cortisol from constantly flooding your blood stream. Think that’s impossible because your life is so stressful? Other people manage it, you can too. It takes forethought, practice, and effort, just like planning/shopping/cooking and eating well. But it’s totally do-able.

Our health is in our hands, from PMS, to Osteoporosis, to GERD, to Heart Health, to Diabetes, Cancer, Auto-Immune and everything else. Practice the habits and actions that lead to Good Health, Good Hormones, and a Good Immune System. Eat healthy fats and proteins, tons of vegetables, some fruit, some nuts and seeds, some whole fat dairy( if your stomach agrees). Exercise or move every day. Go to bed at a decent time. Practice stress management techniques. Drink plenty of water. Avoid foods and people that are toxic ( some people need to be “mentally” avoided if you can’t avoid them physically). Take your power and use it. You can do this!